Genesis 3 and Luke 4: 1-13:  “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  3 15 09 ebc
* LP: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”  The idea is help us not be overwhelmed by temptation but rescue us in my hour of need. 
The Message:  “Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”
Jesus: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The Spirit is willing but the body is weak.”

Lucado: “Satan fights dirty.  He is the master of the trapdoor and the author of weak moments. 
He waits til our defenses are down.  He waits til the bell has rung and we’re walking back to our corner and then he aims his dart at your weakest point.  Bullseye:  you lose your temper.   You lust.  You fall.  You take the drug, buy the drink.  You kiss the person.  You follow the crowd.  You rationalize.  You say yes.  You walk into the room.  You break your promise.  You hit the web site or download the movie. You lie. You covet.  You deny your Master.”

T. is an important topic during Lent.

* Temptation happens because we have convictions:   In our postmodern culture, there is no truth:
Our passage Jesus was filled with the Spirit as he went into the wilderness- filled w power/truth.
Spirit illuminates, guides us into all truth, points us to Jesus, convicts us of sin, provides peace in storms.
Jesus is our model and Jesus knew who he was and what he believed.  Desired His  Father’s will.  
Temptations happen because we have clear convictions about God and a desire to follow Jesus.
We are tempted because we believe that God desires for us to live a certain way:  language, work, sexuality
Old anti-drug program with the phrase:  “Just say no!”  Begs the question: why say no? Feel better?

Most important conviction re temptation:  * This world is a battleground not a playground: 
Paul says were are in a battle with spiritual forces of evil.   If we don’t realize there is a battle then we’re not ready to stand & fight & put on our armor in Eph. 6.  Pastor slain last week in Ill: death day diary
Every time I watch TV, movie or surf the net, I’m more aware that the world is hostile to God/truth:

Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 5: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him and stand firm in your faith…” 

The movie The Passion has an interesting theme:  Satan follows Jesus everywhere seeking to trip him up. Our passage ends: “Satan left him until an opportune time”-always there. In the movie the Passion:   Jesus prays:  Hear me Father.  Save me from the traps they have set for me.  Satan:  Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin?  Jesus:  Shelter me Lord.  I trust in you.  In you I take refuge.  Satan:  No one man can carry this burden.  It’s far too heavy.  Saving their souls is too costly… Who is your Father?  Who are you?  Jesus stands and steps on the slithering snake and severs it…powerful image.

Christians are in a spiritual battle. To experience temptation is not a sign you’ve failed, a sign you’re alive.

Lewis:  “Some say that good people don’t know what temptation is. Lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.  Bad people know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.  * We never find out the strength of the evil inside us until we try to fight it.”  
In this spiritual battle we’re in:  God tests to develop us- James 1.  Satan tempts us to deceive & destroy.

* Temptation always involves some kind of compromise or short cut.
Each of Satan’s temptations was calling Jesus to compromise, to avoid the cross, find an easier way to save.
Bread-material Messiah, Fall-sensational Messiah, Power-political Messiah. (John 6:15). Rule by Power vs. Suffering. 
All of Satan’s temptations called Jesus to compromise,  to be a different kind of Savior.  Don’t suffer
Jesus mission Mk 10:“I came not to be served, but to serve & to give my life as a ransom for many.”
Bible: two roads to travel in life:  narrow road to life-few, broad road to death- many.  Pilgrim’s Progress.

* We need to keep before us the consequences of giving in to temptation:   Prodigal Son affected many.  David and Bathsheba.
Take a moment and study the pain that’s caused when people give in to temptation.  Billboard: Sex makes things different, not better… 
TV often shows the excitement of temptation often w/out the consequences:
Counseling is daily reminder.  You see the patterns: busy, distance, lingering, despair.  Divorce Care:
Financial fallout in companies like Enron. Brokers cheated thousands of millions: Madoff.  Shooting in AL.

* To deal with temptation we need to study others and develop a plan:
- We should study the lives of others: Adam and Eve listened to Satan’s lies, looked at forbidden fruit and lingered before they gave in.   God had clearly told them that they could enjoy every part of the garden but: Think of the process that led Adam & Eve to fail:  she listened, she looked and she lingered.
-Listen to lies.  Eve stood around, listened to Satan’s lies:  God says you’ll die, you wont die.  Go ahead.
-Looked at the object of temptation. “The woman saw the fruit was good for good and pleasing to the eye and desirable for wisdom, she took it & ate it.” What we listen to & look at fills us and directs us: s study:
-Linger over temptation.  The word for look means more than a casual glance.  Eve lingered over the forbidden fruit long time.  She reached out and touched the fruit, held it in her hand and lingered over it. 
David & Samson followed this process with Bathsheba/ Delilah.  Joseph resisted temptation & ran away…
     
The Bible one word for dealing with T:  Flee.  Walk away.  Linger & die.

Dr. Sweeting tells the story of when his family visited Niagara Falls.  It was spring and the ice was rushing down the river.  As he watched he saw large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls, he could see that their were fish frozen inside the blocks of ice.  Gulls by the 100s were riding down the river feeding on the fish. As they came to the edge of the falls, their wings would go out, and would fly up and the block of ice fell into the falls.  He watched one gull which seemed to delay and wondered when it would fly.  It was so engrossed in the fish that it didn’t seem to notice that that the ice block had reached the edge of the falls.  The sea gull looked up at the last minute and out went its powerful wings.  The bird flapped so hard that it even lifted the ice out of the water;  but the gull had lingered so long on the ice that its claws had frozen on the ice block.  The weight of the ice was too great and the gull plunged to its death.  So it is w us when we linger over temptation.  We get so absorbed in the situation that we lose track of our convictions, our conscience freezes, unable to say no.        

- Jesus teaches us not to linger over temptation but act quickly/ decisively/ boldly: Message Mt. 18: 8-9:
“If your hand or foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away.  You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire.  And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away.  You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your 20/20 vision from inside the fires of hell.”  Powerful words.  Don’t linger.  Be pro-active.

Joseph fled the house when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him.  He didn’t linger.  Acted decisively.  We think we’re strong or special but we’re not. See Gal. 6: 1.  ML:  can’t keep the birds from flying overhead:

Poem by Portia Nelson called, "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters,":
-Chapter I:   I walk down the street.   There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I fall in.   I am lost … I am helpless.  It isn't my fault.  It takes forever to find a way out. -Chapter II:   I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I pretend I don't see it.  I fall in again.  I can't believe I am in the same place, but it isn't my fault. 
-Chapter III:  I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there.  I still fall in … it's a habit.  My eyes are open.  I know where I am.  It is my fault.  I get out immediately.
-Chapter IV: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it
-Chapter V:  I walk down another street.  How long will we keep lingering in the same old places?

-We should study the life of Jesus:  tempted in every way yet was w/out sin… he understands.
Hebrews 12:  great cloud of witness, thro off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race, fixing our eyes on Jesus, consider him… study Jesus….
Key: Jesus knew the Bible and he quoted it to Satan..  Each time tempted he quoted Deuteronomy to Satan.
* Ps. 119:  “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.”  Set a goal to learn Bible.

-We must study ourselves, our trends, patterns, our habits.  We tend to fall in the same areas over & over.
James 1:God does tempt us but each one is tempted when by his own desire he is dragged away & enticed.”
Where are we weak?    Jesus had fasted for 40 days and Satan’s first request: make bread!

Paul writes in Romans 7:  I do the very things I hate and I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.  Help!!
Weak areas?:  me: food/ candy, honesty, lazy, sexually, temper/ anger,  pride, appearance, material stuff…
For me: I’m stressed, tired, alone, lonely, feeling sorry for myself, unfulfilled dreams, dissatisfied, bored
My biggest temptations:  to think I can control things I can’t, to allow the hurricane of details to override God’s still small voice and my simple devotion to God,  allowing my anger to overwhelm my common sense, watching images in movies or on the internet because I need to understand the world...

-We need to study common places of temptation:
-Media:  movies, TV, cable, computers/web sites & various mindless distractions of this technological age
-Alone or unaccountable to anyone- when we’re traveling or if we’re alone a lot, we someone to check up
-Physically/ Emotionally Tired- how many times do you find after a stressful week or month, you give in…
-Unresolved issues from childhood on- issues that flowed out of our families and we’ve never resolved/  rapper who beat up Reannan described how his mom was beat up by his dad… he saw that, affected him.
-Insecure and trying to fit in or make an Impression:  we’ll go along with crowd to try to fit in and give in
-a time of Success- When we’re on top.  Satan came to Jesus right after the success of his baptism.
-areas of Loneliness and places where we feel Empty or Discouraged:  where do you see a pattern?

Opening of movie "It's A Wonderful Life:  God says to the angel Clarence:  “Someone on earth needs our help”  “Oh is he sick?”
“No, worse, he’s discouraged.”  Is he sick, suicidal?  No he’s about to slip into despair and depression. 

DB: Shakespeare’s famous line: “To be or not to be—that is the question!”  Shakespeare’s character Hamlet, who speaks these lines, is a melancholy prince who learns that his uncle has killed his father and married his mother. The horror of this realization is so disturbing that he contemplates suicide. The question for him was: “to be” (to go on living) or “not to be” (to take his own life).  At times, life’s pain can become so overwhelming that we are tempted to despair.  Paul in 2 Cor. 1: 18 said his persecution was so intense he “despaired even of life”. Yet by shifting his focus to his life-sustaining God, he became resilient instead of overwhelmed, and learned “that we should not trust in ourselves but in God” (v.9).  Trials can make life seem not worth living. Focusing on ourselves and our situation can lead to despair. But putting our trust in God gives us an entirely different perspective. As long as we live in this world, we can be certain that our all-sufficient God will sustain us. And as His followers, we will always have a divine purpose “to be.”  —

D. Bonhoeffer: “At the moment of temptation, God becomes quite unreal to us. God loses all reality and only our desire for this world becomes real.  * At the moment of temptation, Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.” Journaling helps understand our struggles.Patterns/ trends:  Excuses-bad parents, Denial-I don’t have a problem;  Minimizing:  it’s not that bad.  Avoiding- don’t want to talk about it.  Blaming-devil made me do it.  Comparing- I’m not as bad as. Intellectualizing- latest study: Michael Phelps: “We were celebrating.  It was a small party and some people I thought were my friends took advantage of the situation.”  You don’t get a sense that’s owning this?  Rationalize anything: b. joke

* It all comes down to one thing:  Do you have a growing love relationship with God?  Vision: LIFE  
Lk  8:1:  “ Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”  We are never alone in times of temptation.  God allows us to be tested but if we are seeking God, God sends his Spirit/ angels.  Mt 4: 11, “Then the devil left him, and the angels came and attended/helped him.”  Romans 8:  when we’re weak, the Spirit prays for us…

Homer was an 8th century BC Greek poet who wrote the epic poem “The Odyssey.”  In one story Odyssues is about the sail past the island where the Sirens lived;  half bird/ half women.  The Sirens lived on a island surrounded by jagged rocks.  As ships approached the island, the sirens would sing songs so beautiful and seductive, that sailors would be lured to their deaths on the rocks.  Odyssues knew of the Siren song but he wanted to hear it.  So he ordered his crew to fill their ears with wax so they couldn’t hear the Sirens.  Then he commanded them to tie him to the mast with ropes and to not cut the ropes even if he asked them.  When O. heard the Sirens song the begged to be released, crew refused.  One way to deal with the temptation is to trust our ability to resist, bind ourselves to the mast of truth and to sail into temptation trusting we can resist.   On another day, the ship of the Greek god Orpheus sailed by the same island of the Sirens.  But Orpheus was a gifted musician & he sang a song more beautiful than the seductive Siren songs so that he & his crew passed by the island w/out a problem.   Another way to deal with temptation is to fill our lives so full of God and his heavenly power, that the song of Tempter loses is power to seduce us.  More love, less temptation.
We can live our lives trying to resist.  Or we can be so filled w God that our desires change, new creation.

2 Tim. 2: 22 says it well:  “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with all those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.”   We need times of worship & fellowship.

* 2 Cor. 5:17:  “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation:  the old has gone, the new has come.”
Augustine: immoral, walking thro town, prostitute: A, it is I?  Kept walking.  A:  But it is not I?  Changed.

* Rom 12: 1-2:  “Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God… Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of you mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is…”

* 1 Cor. 10: 13.  “No temptation has seized you, except what is common to man.  * God is faithful:  he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way of escape so that you can stand up under it.”  God’s way of escape is often another person who comes along side you in the midst of your struggle and encourages you to be true to your convictions… LIFE
Eccl. 4: 10: “If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and have no one to help him up!”  
Our vision of LIFE reminds us we need help. 

* James 5: 16: "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."
RW: Don't repress it; confess it! Don't conceal it; reveal. Revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing.

* Hebrews 4: 15-16, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.  * Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

As we continue through the season of Lent:  let’s recommit ourselves to living our lives for God.
I was challenged recently to cut back/ cut out my exposure to technology for a time- tech fast.
My garage serves as “storage” for things that don’t have a place in our home and there are times when I am ashamed to open the door. I don’t want anyone to see the clutter. So I set aside a workday to clean it up.  Our hearts and minds are a lot like that—they accumulate lots of clutter. As we rub shoulders with the world, inevitably, perhaps unknowingly, we pick up ungodly thoughts and attitudes. Thinking that life is all about “me.” Demanding our rights. Reacting bitterly toward those who have hurt us. Before long, our hearts and minds are no longer clean and orderly. While we think we can hide the mess, eventually it will show.  Paul pointedly asked, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” 1 Cor. 6:19—which makes me wonder if God often feels like He is living in our messy garage.  Perhaps it’s time to set aside a spiritual workday and, with His help, get to work clearing out the clutter. Discard those thoughts of bitterness. Bag up and throw out the old patterns of sensual thoughts. Organize your attitudes. Fill your heart with the beauty of God’s Word. Make it clean to the core, and then leave the door open for all to see!

Prayer:   Jude 24:  “Jesus you have promised that you are able to keep you from falling and to present us before the glorious presence of your Father without fault and with great joy.”  We sometime wonder if you can truly keep us from sin because we struggle every day, seeking the darkness of temptation and avoiding the light of truth.  Speak to us.  Convict us.  Move us.  Change our hearts.

O Jesus I Have Promised.  Great hymn and the favorite of my uncle Kurt that died in WWII.
O let me feel Thee near me, The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle, The tempting sounds I hear;
My foes are ever near me, Around me and within;
But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer, And shield my soul from sin.